


Memory

by Mirabai0821



Category: Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Angst, Character Death, Grief/Mourning, Hurt/Comfort, Kink Meme, Multi
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-05-29
Updated: 2015-05-29
Packaged: 2018-04-01 18:44:59
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Major Character Death
Chapters: 5
Words: 2,859
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4030582
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mirabai0821/pseuds/Mirabai0821
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Written for the Dragon Age Kink Meme: After all is said and done with coffee-face, how do the Inquisitor/their companions/etc die? </p><p>Chapter 1: Cullen<br/>Chapter 2: Dorian<br/>Chapter 3: Iron Bull<br/>Chapter 4: Vivienne<br/>Chapter 5: Lady Trevelyan</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Memory

**Author's Note:**

> I wrote this for the Dragon Age Kink meme for the following prompt:
> 
> http://dragonage-kink.livejournal.com/14317.html?thread=54334445#t54334445
> 
> Prompt: After all is said and done with coffee-face, how do the Inquisitor/their companions/etc die? 
> 
> To quote Varric: "If you love a character, you give them pain, ruin their lives, make them suffer. Maybe even throw in a heroic death!"
> 
> Truer words have never been spoken.

It started simply enough. 

He would forget things. 

Little things like meetings with Commander Rylen, or engagements they had settled months in advance. Like that time he forgot they were supposed to meet with Viv...Divine Victoria over whether or not the intractable woman would give them the funds they needed to expand Skyhold's circle.

Cullen didn't particularly like Vivienne, respected her for Evelyn's sake but didn't necessarily like her, so when he was questioned later about the scheduling mishap he had simply replied 'I forgot' and his wife let the matter drop. (Though only after his _profuse_ apologies later).

Their grandson had been looking forward to this trip for an age. The chance to go watch Gamma Evey shoot in the Grand Tourney, little Alexander had thought of nothing else so fondly in all 8 years of his short life.

The sight of his tears when Cullen woke late on the morning they were to leave and subsequently miss the only boat that would get them across the sea in time for it, was the first indication to the Commander that something was going wrong with him.

When he asked Dorian about it, the Magister sniffed and made a crude remark of getting old and an equally cruder remark about the retained shapeliness of his ass.

Iron Bull scoffed and still pretended to jealousy as he always pretended to jealousy whenever Dorian flirted. Cullen was surprised neither bit had gotten old in their on again off again relationship of 23 or so years.

He left his swords out instead of wracking them properly.

He started to leave words out of sentences. 

First the non-critical ones like 'a', 'an' and 'the'. 

Then the more critical ones, like subjects and verbs.

Evelyn took him to see the Divine. He did not miss the appointment this time.

When his pride had been sufficiently deflated and as he was buttoning his tunic up over 54 years of scars and weakened muscle that still managed to catch their grown son by surprise, Victoria, (who deigned to let herself be called Viv in their private company) pulled the Inquisitor to the side.

"It's the lyrium."

"He hasn't taken it in decades Viv!"

"I know darling, I know."

It lingered in him making the same courses in the blood, pump after pump wearing away and wearing down like water on a rock. 

She almost _almost_ , lit the Sunburst Palace on fire.

He shed his chains, only for them to come back in the twilight of his life and drag him into death.

It wasn't fair.

Victoria's templars were lyrium free. Only the most devout and dedicated consumed the substance knowing full well the dangers that entailed. 

Most of the old guard, the templars of Cullen's time, had died long ago. Consumed by red madness and led to their deaths by Corypheus.

He already knew the diagnosis before she could summon the courage to speak.

"It's the lyrium isn't it?"

His wife nodded, tears shaking free from her amber eyes to slide down gently wrinkled skin.

He prayed that, even if it took every memory he had; if he forgot the birthdays of his children and grandchildren; if he forgot the faces of his closest friends; if he forgot how to hold a sword or form a single coherent sentence, Cullen Rutherford prayed he would never forget her face and what that face had meant to him these last damn near 30 years.

The lyrium made his heart forget how to beat before it took from him the memory of their love.


	2. Fratoro

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This wasn't supposed to happen. This was supposed to be a one shot. Send help.

"Sorora, come back with me to the Imperium, I need you." Dorian asked and Evelyn knew he was lying. 

Dorian didn't _need_ her any more than he needed the extra scoop of sugar in his morning coffee or that very specific brand of moustache wax that works just the same as the regular kind but smells a little better; he doesn't need it, but it's nice to have. 

"The referendum on abolition is coming and I need your support. It would bolster our cause to have the Inquisitor behind me." 

"You don't need me," she cut across him sharply

.

Dorian sighed, his smile pulling tight and sad. "No, I don't. But I'd like to see you smile again Amata, and getting you out of the south might do well for you. Too much here reminds you." 

Dorian knew her, as good as Cullen did. 

"Your children are grown, you haven't been the Inquisitor in naught more than title in a decade. Peace reigns but there is still work to be done." 

Evelyn agreed, she kissed her son and grandson farewell, and left on the first boat to Minrathous. 

Iron Bull was ecstatic to have Evelyn around, claiming to be tired of all the 'cocks in the house.'

Whether that meant the various and sundry abolitionists and magisters that came and went on Imperium business or the prize gamecocks Dorian had taken to raising in his estate, Evelyn did not know. 

They went with him when Dorian addressed the lower forum, so they could hear him give his impassioned speech urging the honored assembly to vote for the abolition of the wretched institution of slavery. As his voice rose when he recounted the gruesome tales of the escaped and those still in bondage, he embellished his speech with little sparks of electricity, to make it look like his emotion ran so thick and deep that he lost control of his magic. 

Iron Bull knew better though. There was only one way Dorian Pavus cold ever lose control of his magic and the Tal-Vashoth was nowhere near him right now. 

"Did you see, Amatus! It passed! It passed!" 

**

Iron Bull found him, reclining in a sun-drenched chaise in his library, a book splayed open on his chest. He reached to take the book from him and searched for a blanket to tuck him into, before he noticed that it did not move, that Dorian's chest lay still and quiet. And then he looked to find gray eyes staring wide open and sightless. 

He moved the book. 

It concealed a dagger. 

Iron Bull fell to his knees, a quivering shaking mass of flesh and bone and _sorrow_. 

When she found them, he had pulled Dorian into his massive chest and rocked him slowly back and forth.

"They were scared kadan, scared of what you were changing. You were doing it baby. You were winning, and it scared them." Iron Bull smothered his cold face with kisses and wet them with his tears.

Iron Bull _never_ cried.

"Boss." Iron Bull warbled with a sick watery voice wholly inappropriate for a bare-chested qunari pushing 50.

Evelyn stiffened, he had not called her that since they all stopped going to war.

"Help me." He cried.

 _To work_ , she heard her husband whisper.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Fratoro: My made up ass Tevene word for 'brother'  
> Sorora: My made up ass Tevene word for 'sister'


	3. Charger

As much as he abhorred violence, Dorian would have been pleased to know that his death started a war. Iron Bull and his Boss expected the Magisterium to fall over themselves to order inquests and investigations into Magister Pavus' assassination, they did not expect a revolt. 

Across all 51 senatorial districts, slaves in every state of treatment grabbed what weapons they could lay hands on and went to war. 

He would have been their liberator. 

They would avenge him. 

Fenris, the Grand Commander of the Liberati, was all too happy to appoint the Inquisitor and Iron Bull as commanders in his army of freedom fighters. 

Morale skyrocketed. 

So did their victories. 

Iron Bull made a poor widower and nights were the worst. He couldn't sleep, succumbing almost nightly to fits of barely contained pained moaning. 

Dorian had been his only, his anchor in the world. The Chargers were long disbanded and without _something_ , _anything_ he was aimless, purposeless. 

Evelyn held him, wrapped her arms around him and let him wail into her neck until he fell asleep. 

Sometimes he returned the favor, soothing her in qunlat as she cried for her lost husband and brother. 

Sometimes they just held onto each other and no one cried. 

Only with an axe in his hand, mowing down his enemies, was Iron Bull, Iron Bull again. Now pushing 60 and the Tal-Vashoth could still put the fear of the Maker in anyone who saw him roaring. 

They never found the assassin who wielded the blade, but they did catch up to the leader of the pro-slavery forces. The one who threw a party when the news broke that Dorian had been slain. 

The poor bastard fled the field when his army revolted against him, tired of fighting and no longer sold on the idea of keeping slavery around anymore. 

She did not order him back when Iron Bull pursued him alone. 

She didn't go with him either. 

And she did not rush to him when he finally stumbled back to camp, his greataxe the only thing keeping him on his feet. 

He was torn to bloody shreds, flesh hanging off of him like strips of half carved meat. 

But he smiled, bright and true and radiantly. The first and only of its kind since Dorian had gone. 

"They're free, kadan. All of them." 

The Iron Bull let his axe fall to the dirt and he fell to his knees, eyes raised to the sky. 

Horns up. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> STAHP. ME.


	4. Divine

The moment she stepped on southern soil from the Imperium, there was a carriage waiting for her, gilded in the unmistakable heraldry of the Divine. 

A very handsome darkskinned man greeted her, introducing himself as the Left hand of Divine Victoria and asked politely for her to accompany him to Val Royeaux. 

She had intended to return to Skyhold. 

While she kept in constant touch with her friends and her son, Evelyn had not seen any of them in the years she spent as general in the Imperium Civil War. 

But the Divine did not make requests, she gave orders. 

**

The man who was her Left hand was actually literally her left hand, a stroke having rendered that half of her body useless about 5 years ago. 

But her eyes are still as shrewd and sharp as her tongue. The first thing Viv did upon seeing the Inquisitor again was run her only working hand through her locs (now completely white with age) lamenting that they have not been cared for properly. 

And how could they be? The man who tended them, who loved tending them, had been dead for a decade now.

The women talked. Vivienne seemed pleased with the idea that her Left hand should follow her as the new Divine. 

"But he's a man, Viv." 

"And you ended slavery in the Imperium. Stranger things have happened, darling." 

Evelyn drank a tiny sip of Fireblast whiskey (straight from the bottle) and conceded the point. 

The next day, Vivienne desired to go riding. 

It didn't matter that the entire left half of her body was numb. It also didn't matter that she was on the far side of her 70's. Divine de Fer wanted to do it, so she did it. 

And she did it sidesaddle, her Left hand tenderly holding her upright as they rode together. 

Because damnit, she was a _lady_.

"Bastien and I used to ride, just like this, right through these gardens. Did I ever tell you that?" 

"Yes your Radiance." Her Left hand smiled. "Many times. You like to tease me often by reminding me that there was someone else in your heart other than me." 

Vivienne giggled and it made her sound 50 years younger. 

Her Left hand was far closer to the Divine than her Right. In fact the rumor was the Divine had taken him as her lover. 

Given the way the man who could be her grandson was smiling at her and the way she was smiling back, Evelyn believed it. 

In fact, she knew it. 

**

Another stroke came to claim the other half of her body, but instead claimed the whole of it. 

Her Left hand accompanied her corpse through every stage of preparation, sometimes tending to her himself and himself alone. 

He sang the Chant at her Ascension, his clear tenor ringing over the distressed shouts of the funeral attendants as no man had ever done such a thing in the long history of the church. 

When he finished, and before the templars could take him into custody, his kissed his Divine and revealed a blade. 

He cut his hair, tore his clothes, and cast down the chain of his office at the feet of the Chantry Mothers and Grand Councilors. He stormed out of the Sunburst Palace and disappeared. 

No one ever saw him again. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Spoiler alert:  
> The Left hand is totally Ser Barris. He survived okay. Just let me have this.  
> I'm not doing all the companions, just the ones my Trevelyan was closest too.
> 
> There is only one left now.


	5. His Lady

She was not prepared to see him standing in Skyhold's expanded training yard barking commands at the new recruits who scrambled about desperately to obey them. 

Because he was his father in every way, down to the gold of his eyes and the curl of his hair. 

Yet he too was his mother. Skin on the darker side of brown, a color somewhere between his father's golden sunlight and his mother's dark earth. 

Their son, the force that tied earth and sun together. 

She wept when his eyes landed on her, she'd been gone so long, 11 years to the very day they buried her husband. 

Her son dropped his father's sword and his father's shield and ran to his mother, sweeping her frail and tired but not yet broken form into his arms. 

"Mama!" 

It should have been unseemly for a man his age to act this way, but the easy, carefree way Cullen loved his wife, their son loved his mother. 

And... any soldier who had the balls to crack a joke would face his wrath and be divested of said balls. 

"We missed you. We got your gifts, your letters. Alex is away on Inquisition business but he should be back any day, faster now that Nana is home." 

Her boy led his mother across Skyhold's open courtyard. She leaned against him, resting her head on his black furry cloak while he rattled on about the last ten years of gossip, news, and business. She let him ramble, picking out the subtle tones and inflections of his voice, pleased that he had picked up his father's Ferelden accent. 

"My lady mother?" 

My lady. 

The phrase that started everything. 

She let the words wash over her, let them take her back some 40 years and hundreds of miles away, to a war room in a cramped, broken down Chantry. He had spoken those words to her and she had lost herself in their wake, carried away by his voice and then swept under by face cast in golden sunlight. 

They called her Trevelyan. 

Then murderer. 

Then Herald. 

Then Inquisitor. 

But no matter her title, he had always lovingly called her 'my lady' and had passed the tradition on to their son. 

She heard his distant voice now in the tender voice of her child. Her precious boy who had grown into a man and father and leader worthy of the title his soldiers bestowed upon him. 

The Lion of Skyhold. 

"Yes, my child." 

"We're here." 

She hadn't noticed that he led her to the private section of the gardens, kept safe behind lock and key open to the sky and festooned with flowers and fruit bearing citrus trees kept thriving by the ancient magic still present in Skyhold's stones. Before her lay a statue of a lion at rest, paws crossed and eyes closed. 

"Auntie Divine had this commissioned right after you left. Uncle Varric and Auntie Cass designed it. The inscription is mine though." 

_HERE SLEEPS LORD CULLEN RUTHERFORD_

_COMMANDER OF THE ARMIES OF THE INQUISITION_

_OUR FRIEND_

_OUR FATHER_

_HER LION_

"This is beautiful." Evelyn said, voice thick with emotion. 

"Really? Think he'd be proud of it?" 

"He'd be proud of you." 

Her son beamed at her and his smiles were made of gold. 

"I love you mother. And you are probably tired. Let's get you to your chambers." 

She ran her fingers over the stone lion's mane and placed a kiss on its forehead. "Yes, let's go." 

A headache suddenly overcame her, nothing serious, just a slight, sharp pinch in the back of her brain. But with her age, it was enough to stagger her steps. She stumbled, tripped, and fell over. 

A pair of strong arms caught her, though, before she could strike the ground. 

"Have you been drinking?" A regal, feminine voice called. 

"At this time of day? Without sharing? Sorora, I expected better!" A male voice responded. 

"Aww, leave her alone you two." Another voice answered, deeper and richer than the last. 

A man stood her upright. 

He was cast in sunlight, a bright loving smile shining across his face. 

A smile made of gold. 

Her headache was gone, fled as quickly as it came, in fact she felt better now. Better than she had in _years_ , the best she had ever felt. 

_Ever._

"Welcome home, my lady." 

**

_HERE SLEEPS LADY EVELYN TREVELYAN_

_HERALD OF ANDRASTE_

_OUR INQUISITOR_

_OUR MOTHER_

_HIS LADY_

_MAY THEY FOREVER REST TOGETHER IN PEACE_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This killed me utterly. Ruined an entire 8 hour day of work.  
> Why, Maker, why did you make me do this?  
> Thanks for all your kind words and encouragment. I hope you've enjoyed reading as much as I've enjoyed writing.


End file.
